Got Grace? - 2 Peter 1:1-2 Series

2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those equal to us in the faith they have received because of the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Introduction

Wishing the Best

When you’re about to leave and you want to say something nice, what do you usually say? Probably the most common parting wish is, “Have a nice day.” That’s a friendly thing to say, right? Not very specific, but generally you want their day to be … nice.

Another one is, “Take care.” Or, I love this one - “Take it easy.” Just make sure you take the easiest possible path – don’t put forth any effort, don’t break a sweat, don’t do any work. You’re just giving them a free pass to take the path of least resistance.

Most of our greetings are along that line. Although, if it’s someone you really love and you may never see them again, you might go for something a little better than, “Have a nice day.” Or how about a toast at a wedding? Now you’re really racking your brain to come up with the best wish you could give them—at least the best thing related to marriage.

If you can’t think of anything, you could just punt and say, “I wish you all the best.” But what is that—what is the best thing that could happen to them? Good health? Prosperity? What do you wish for the people you love the most?

This is actually an important question, because it affects more than just what you say in a greeting. Whatever you regard as the most valuable thing—that thing you wish the most for those you love, that’s what you’ll pray for. And that’s what you will work to bring that about in their lives. And it’s the thing you’ll work hardest to get for yourself. And when you really want to be generous, or you really want to express love to someone, or you really want to help someone who is in trouble, you will give them the thing you regard as most valuable. So this is really a huge question in your life. The way you answer this question will show the direction your life is going to take. We pursue that which we truly believe is most valuable—that’s what steers the direction of your whole life.

So what’s the best thing you can wish on someone? The best way to answer that question is to ask this: What is the main thing God wants for you? We’ll find out in a minute, but first, let’s take a look at verse 1 of 2 Peter.

Three Truths from Greetings

The NT Bible writers started their letters with the same basic format that letters generally had in that culture, but instead of the meaningless boilerplate greetings—the “have a nice day”-type greetings that most people used, the NT writers would put substantive teaching in the greeting. We don’t want to skim over the greetings in the epistles because they teach important truths that we need to hear. Mostly, they teach us three things. The first is the credentials of the writer.

Peter’s Credentials

2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ

Those are two very high credentials. Preachers usually say the first one is a humble title and the second one is a high, authoritative role. Actually, they are both high, authoritative roles.

Slave

He calls himself a servant (or slave) of God. Slaves of a king were members of that king’s cabinet, part of the royal court. And if you follow that title “servant of God” through the OT, you’ll see that it’s applied to people like Moses, Samuel, David, and the Patriarchs. A servant of God is a leader God has chosen to have a special place in his household. Peter is claiming that role for himself, which is remarkable. He’s establishing his authority.

Now, we can also say that even though it’s a lofty position in the kingdom of God, there is still an element of lowliness to it because this is the normal word for slave. When you’re a slave, someone else owns you. You’re not the captain of your own ship, you’re not the boss of your own life. You live in a posture of submissiveness and your whole life is lived for the will of someone else, not your own will. That’s not a popular idea in our culture no matter how important your master is. You don’t often hear Christian celebrities use the term “slave of Jesus” as their main credential. Some people claim the title “apostle,” but usually not “slave.”

Apostle

Peter claimed both credentials—slave and Apostle of Jesus Christ. There are two kinds of apostles in the New Testament: Apostles of Christ and apostles of the church. And apostle of the church is a missionary—someone sent out by the church and commissioned by the church for a spiritual mission. An Apostle of Christ is an official spokesman for Christ. And that is the highest office any human outside of Christ himself has ever held. Their words carried the very authority of the Lord himself, which is why their letters are Scripture. Disobey an Apostle and you’re defying Jesus Christ.